The present invention relates generally to treatment of contaminated material and, more particularly, is concerned with a method and apparatus for remediating contaminated soil, such as gasoline contaminated earth.
Soil contamination is a frequent by-product of certain types of industrial and business operations. One typical example is a gasoline storage depot or service station having leaking gasoline storage tanks. The contaminated soil at the abandoned site must be remediated to make the land suitable for some other use. The cleanup cost can easily be more than the market value of the real estate.
Heretofore, the cleanup operation has been performed in a very time-consuming and inefficient manner. For example, one cleanup method has been to spread out the contaminated soil with a farm implement and mix it with an absorbent. Then, the mixture of contaminated soil and absorbent is manually sprayed with hydrogen peroxide and the sprayed soil is again mixed using the farm implement. The peroxide and absorbent react with the contaminant in the soil to form more environmentally acceptable reaction by-products.
Mechanization of the cleanup operation is highly desirable to accomplish decontamination in a more systematic and reliable manner and with improved efficiency and possibly lower cost. Machines are known in the prior art for regeneration of asphalt pavement by removing the asphalt from the previously paved road surface and returning the same to the surface from which it was taken after being rejuvenated by pulverizing and mixing it with a binder. Representative of the prior art are the machines disclosed in Bauer, Jr. U.S. Pat. No. (4,272,212) and Chiostri U.S. Pat. No. (4,453,856). However, approaches for mechanization of asphalt regeneration are not perceived as being directly applicable to remediation of contaminated soil.
Consequently, a need exists for a way to mechanize remediation of contaminated soil to improve reliability and efficiency of cleanup operations.